"We have to stand up and fight for the club and our fans"

At the end of the match at the Estádio Municipal de Braga, in round 34 round of the Liga Betclic, Pavlidis, scorer of Benfica's goal (1-1) and voted Man of the Match, lamented the fact that the Eagles were not as effective as their opponents in the early stages of the game.

"We had two good chances in the first half when the score was 0-0. Then the penalty. I can't tell if it's a penalty or not, I don't want to say anything, but it's difficult when you try, try, try, and don't score. And then, on [the opponent's] chance, you concede a goal. In the 2nd half, we gave everything. We scored a goal, but it wasn't enough. Now we have the Portuguese Cup final, we have to stand up again and fight for the club, our team and our fans," he said in statements to Sport TV.

The Greek international striker acknowledged that the draw in Braga added to the frustration of the group. "Yes, we knew it would be difficult to be champions because of last week's result, but we were focused on ourselves. We tried to win the game. We gave everything. We're sorry for the fans, because we know how much they love this club and how much they support us and fight for us. We're fighting for them too. We tried our best and we'll keep going until the end," he promised.

With the Portuguese Cup next Sunday, May 25, in mind, Pavlidis stressed that "all trophies are important for Benfica". "It doesn't matter if it's the Portuguese Cup, the Championship or the Champions League. They're all important. We have to win everything. It's another game and we have to win. We know how big the club is and how we want to win titles. We're going to try to do that," he said.

"You can see that we've played Sporting three times this year. I can't say that there was one game out of the three where we were inferior, that they slaughtered us or anything like that. I think all the games were really 50/50. These two points [difference to 1st] didn't happen now, maybe six months ago, a month or two months ago. In other games, we've lost easy results. I think between the two teams... they're both really good and the difference is very small," he added.

Regarding the fact that he has scored another goal in the 2024/25 season, bringing his total to 29 - 19 in the Liga Betclic - Pavlidis pointed out that “the most important thing” is that the “team wins”. "I don't look at statistics, of course it's important for a striker to score, but for me the most important thing is to score to help the team. Whether I score or not, I'll always do my best," he concluded.